“The Arcadia Invitational is one of the premiere high school meets in the U.S. It has been billed as the ‘Home of National Records.’ Since 1968, the meet has produced 31 national high school records and has helped to produce 179 U.S. Olympians. The team qualified for Arcadia by winning the DMR at the Dublin Distance Fiesta on March 17,” said Carlmont’s track and field coach John Lilygren.

Samantha DahlbergTanner Anderson, a senior, Caleb Metzler, a sophomore, John Lilygren, Carlmont’s track coach, Justin Hsu, a junior, and Ryan Wilson, a senior, all pose after setting a new record for Carlmont’s track team.

Since this meet was not considered a typical meet, a lot was riding more on the minor details to get ahead.

“All I could think about during my portion of the race was to make sure that I give Caleb the clear lane for him to take off for his leg so that we could come in strong at the end. I did not have a lot of time to think about the fact that there were 27 guys pressed up against each other body to body with incredibly sharp spikes next to me. That’s the type of stuff I had to block out,” said DMR runner Tanner Anderson, a senior.

Tanner Anderson, a senior, strides through his 400 meter run in his leg of the race.

There was fierce competition with all of the 27 schools competing to get this huge title of honor.

“I got the baton in 5th place just around the same time as some other teams. There was a group of three that were probably nine seconds in front of us. I told my teammates I was going to go all out, so I did not want to let them down. I went out pretty hard to possibly catch the leaders but they ended up just being too far away. Splitting a 4:16, I was able to hold off the rest of the pack and gain two spots to bring us to 3rd place,” said DMR runner Ryan Wilson, a senior.

Even though this was the only race that the boy’s varsity team ran in, all of the runners made sure to have other schools fear them.